#aythyinae

Lucky ducks: Once thought extinct, rare pochards take steps toward recovery

One of the world’s rarest birds, once thought to be extinct, successfully bred in the wild late last year. The crop of ducklings marks a victory for conservation groups that have been working for more than a decade to save the species.

In November, conservationists celebrated the appearance of 12 Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata) ducklings on Lake Sofia in northern Madagascar. They had introduced a set of young adult pochards there in December 2018 but did not expect them to reproduce so quickly. Diving ducks normally don’t breed until they are 2 years old.

“We were very surprised and excited to have chicks just one year after introducing the ducks,” Felix Razafindrajao, a wetlands manager for Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, a group based on Jersey in the British Isles, told Mongabay. In addition to the 12 ducklings, which came in two broods, there are also eight pochard eggs in the marshes that should hatch in the next few weeks, he said.

The pochard was once common in Madagascar’s highlands, but the population declined rapidly in the mid-20th century. Besides one male found in 1991, there were no confirmed sightings between 1970 and 2006, when a scientist from U.S conservation group the Peregrine Fund happened to spot a few of the ducks in a volcanic lake in northern Madagascar.

Decades-long efforts to find the duck through surveys and public campaigns had, it turned out, been too geographically restricted. The search had focused on the center of the high plateau, and especially the Lake Alaotra region, where the pochard, known locally as fotsimaso (“white eyes”), was once common. But the duck was in the far fringes of the high plateau.

“Everybody was looking for the duck in the high plateau but they forgot about the high plateau in the northwest,” Richard Lewis, Durrell’s country director, told Mongabay.

The rediscovered pochards were in fact living in a mile-high lake, surrounded by what Lewis called a “fabulous bit of forest up in the middle of nowhere,” where there was little deforestation or rice cultivation. The Bemanevika site, some 32 to 40 kilometers (20 to 25 miles) northwest of the town of Bealanana, is now a protected area, having received that status partly because of the pochard’s presence. The site includes four shallow lakes, but the pochards usually stay on the one where they were found and breed in its papyrus marshes.

This tufted duck, the first ever sighted in Australia, was spotted at Werribee treatment plant near Melbourne

Photograph: Melbourne Water

Rare birds ‘at risk of poisoning from eating lead shot’ | The Guardian

Several rare bird species, including a breed of red-headed duck listed as “vulnerable”, are under threat from lead poisoning linked to shooting, a new report says.

Numbers of common pochard, a duck species at risk of global extinction, have fallen substantially over the past 30 years, a decline partly attributed to the fact that they eat some of the 5,000 tonnes of lead pellets discarded in the countryside by people shooting game, according to the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG).

Other species affected by lead poisoning include the grey partridge, which is also on the RSPB’s “red list” of threatened species, as well as the golden eagle, common buzzard and red kite, the LAG says.

The warning comes in a major new report by the LAG, an expert panel set up by the government in 2010, which says up to 400,000 wildfowl a year may suffer from lead poisoning, causing up to 100,000 deaths. Recent research cited in the report shows that lead can be toxic at lower levels than previously thought.

More than 600,000 people go shooting in the UK each year, part of an industry worth about £2bn. They typically use lead shot to hunt birds, a practice known as wildfowling. The shot scatters when it leaves the gun barrel, and a large proportion falls to the ground. Birds eat the lead shot, mistaking it for the gravel their gizzards need to digest food.

The report says new research shows that birds wounded by lead shot also suffer lead poisoning. By using steel shot instead, shooting-related industries could save up to £16m a year, research indicates.

Lesser Scaup Airborne (via USFWS Mountain-Prairie)

After its running-on-water takeoff, this lesser scaup raises its landing gear and flaps to gain altitude over the wetland it has flushed from. Lesser scaup have been quite common to see in the Kulm Wetland Management District of North Dakota this spring.